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5.31.2007

so we arrived in the B-E-A-utiful Detroit rock city.. and when i say beautiful i mean GHETTO! the drive here was ok.. we stayed at a shadey motel last night.. we immediatly checked for cameras, 2-way mirrors and dead hookers.. all clear.. except for lots of random stains. so.. our shoes never came off.

i slept way to late which meant no shower for you! which is a fair trade for a good nights sleep w/ AC.

and to think i made fun of Bill for showering before bed..

-tom----------------------so chicago went well... in several respects. had some great mexican food from whole in the wall place called "panchos". mmmm...red beans and rice will always bring you back to life. ronny's bar is a crazy place. it was nice. the live room sorta harkened back to some old school days of practicing in the parents' garage when i was in middle and high school with bands past. so, i guess i would say it was a nostalgic (energy-filled) show.

then the hotel, which tom talked about above... i would give it 5.5 out of 5 stars!!! the A/C in our room didn't work... so it was like sleeping in a sweatshop... our shower towels had these mysterious, brown (fecal) stains (which casey noticed just as he was about to dry himself off with one), and then there was the distinct appearnce from the state of my bed sheets that "someone was fucking in my bed too!!" but, for $40 when you're tired as all get out, you're willing to look past those things. and so now we sit waiting for someone to show up at the club in detroit so we can start the load-in. i took a quick drive around and its a shame about detroit... lesson to all... don't let the automotive lobby run the economy in your town! i've never seen so many consecutive blocks of once ornate and grand, now hollowed and dilapidated buildings.

We are on the road about half an hour from Detroit, and a few hours more from our third show on our tour. The first two have went swimmingly except for technical issues on my end. Now that I think of it, most of the "issues" we have had I have the pleasure of being the one responsible for. I will relate a story....

We decided to leave DC and drive right to Minneapolis without stopping to be able to spend all day roaming Minneapolis which is a fantastic city.

I was driving our van and was new to the gas mileage it received and thought that I had it all planned to reach our next gas station. Anyhow, as we were all heading down a nice long hill I felt the gas pedal no longer responding. This discovery led me to what became perhaps the worst 12 seconds of my life. The moment where I realized what I had done and was already living with not only the problem but the fact that I was the only one who knew what was going on. I was debating in my head how break the news with the least amount of shame while simultaneously trying to; A)Remain calm and not let on we were out of gas in traffic and, B)How to get us the hell out of harm's way while waiting for a miracle to get us the last little jaunt to the gas station.

I was able to make it over to the shoulder, without power steering, get out of the truck and explain to everyone that No, I did not miss an exit, but rather had stranded on of our 2 vehicles.

The shame. The shame.

And to top everything else, the van gently rolled up and stopped in front of the sign informing us we were less than 2 miles from the gas station.

Bill pointed out the extra irony of our situation which was that we were in a gas guzzling van stranded on a highway directly next to a series of sky-high windmills doing their job of making life better for all through clean fuel.

I will leave what is left of my self respect intact for now and not tell the next story. For now.

Be sure to stay tuned to see how that wascawy Carwos leads the team into harm's way again. Next episode: Border Crossing???

5.28.2007

well... we made it. after 20 hours..and one breakdown because of lack of gas..thanks carlos.(next time he will listen and not say.. "we can make it..trust me" well.. we were so close.. not close enough. and carlos keeps losing the keys every stop we make... ---------- coffee is a glorious (and simultaneously terrible thing...) on the road. i had burger king coffee, sheetz coffee, Ella's Country Inn Restaurant (a really nice way of saying "multi-use gas station") coffee, subway coffee, black coffee, brown coffee, solidified coffee, textured coffee and the "pass-right-through-you" coffee. you can tell alot about a state by the nature of its coffee service via the gas stations. so far, minnesota has good coffee.

also, as a side note - i spent a good 45 minutes updating my itunes library to have a slam-packed ipod for the trip. i thought to myself - "self, you have 15 hours of consecutive music on your ipod now... i think you are good." as it turns out, 15 hours of consecutive music only works if you have a 15 hour trip or less... for a 20 hour drive... eh... not so much...

working on a couple of hours of sleep at the moment, so suffice to say that we made it to minneapolis and we'll be starting the tour "officially" tomorrow. pictures and videos are going to be updated on the blog nightly (of course we're aiming high with a statement like that) and also on myspace and youtube... once we've managed to wake bill from his coma. so you'll be able to keep tabs on the antics and shananigans and chaos of a bellflur-road trip... officially dubbed the "tetris-tour '07"... a throwback to our needed figuring of how to place 20 cubic feet of equipment into a 15 cubic feet capacity van...

... fyi - it doesn't work well...

casey, carlos and bill (if he were awake) send their love.

until tomorrow!

- patrick and tom

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5.27.2007

thanks to all who came to the show last night. It was a great time. So after a late night we finally managed to to get up and get on the road. Minneapolis here we come. our ETA is approx 4:23am. keep checking back for updates, picutres and videos.

-da flur

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5.25.2007

so...as you may or may not know, bellflur is playing a show this Saturday night. It will be the first date of our tour, so come out to the Rock and Roll Hotel to send us on our way!! also if anyone could help us out w/ any support/info for the tour would be awesome... you know.. kinda like.. "Don't forget to see the worlds largest ball of twine in Minnesota"

we will be bringing Bill Risen and Ben Rowney on the ro-ad w/ us. You may know bill the projector/visual guy.. also ben has helped us in the past w/ video work etc.. They will be helping us document the whole experience. we will be updating a video blog daily and our reg blog as well.. just go to bellflur.com

also-Its Ben's Birthday on Saturday so come out and have a drink or twelve w/ him...